One More Thing...

[handful_ofdust]

...that occurs to me, vis a vis the whole "betrayed by canon" debate:

Occasionally, there are legitimate instances--mainly on television, since TV has (by its very nature) an inherent back-and-forth call and response pattern that must be maintained with its audience/consumer-base in order for the narrative to complete itself--of creators becoming aware of their fans thinking they know which way they're going to jump, story-wise, and deliberately going in the opposite direction. Possibly this is because they don't like being predicted/predictable, or possibly it comes out of a (mistaken, from my POV) belief that people would rather be surprised and delighted than simply delighted. But often it leads nowhere good, basically because stories have an organic, logical shape--mainly springing from/driven by the interaction of character, theme and world-building elements--that they truly do need to follow, in order to create something lasting and satisfying.

The simultaneously best and worst example of this very bad idea? Battlestar Galactica (Reboot Version), for the lose. Not only did Ron Moore et al end up forcing their entire beautifully-constructed show pear-shaped, they also managed to schism their own fan-base so toxically that for a good half to seventy-five per cent of them, the entire show ended up retroactively poisoned. Considering Moore had previously watched Daniel Knauff wreck his own show single-handedly, you would've thought he'd've taken the lessons of Carnivale to heart...but no. I guess it's always harder when you're the person who's too close to see what really matters.

So: Bringing this back to me again, like I tend to, I think that most people who've been reading along with the Hexslinger books probably have at least a few ideas about where things will end up, which is fine with me, because--without giving anything away--at least half of those ideas are probably correct; really, there's only so many ways things can end given how I've set things up, as well as how things have changed in execution. As long as I can juggle both those factors well enough to make said ending satisfying to myself, therefore, I'm happy to trust that other people will be equally happy with it. And if they're not...well, that's okay, too.

Don't second-guess! This is a credo which works equally well on either side of the equation, to my mind.;)

Comments

[kmarkhoover.livejournal.com]

You are right, it does absolutely no good at all to second guess yourself when writing. Best to go with your gut and trust yourself. Which, I know, is often easier said than done, but the results are usually better.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I'm in a better position than some in terms of striking this pose, because at every point on the Hexslinger curve, I've been working from the original outline I sold the first book with. So I have a very good idea indeed where things are going to end up, and the subsequent work has lain completely in figuring out how/why they're going to end up there.